Longbottom put a muffliato over the door as soon as the girls were outside.

He came towards me with his arms crossed and now stood in front of me.

He didn't look threatening, but the fact that he tried was a little admirable.

"So Malfoy..." he began, spitting out my name as if it disgusted him.

In fact, it probably was, I probably disgusted him.

"...What do you want?"

I raised my eyebrows.

"To your recollection, you were the one who locked us in this room. So the question should be, what do you want?"

"That's what you want from Daisy?" he corrected himself.

He was really trying hard to look evil and threatening, voice firm, no stuttering and wand firmly in hand.

Kudos Longbottom, this is getting good.

"I'm really serious about her, if that's what you want to know."

"Can you ever say a sentence without lying?"

"Give me Veritaserum and then make up your own mind about my lies."

I would never have said that if it hadn't been a logical suggestion but never had I expected him to actually have a vial in his pocket.

"I'm impressed," I muttered as I eyed the vial.

"Drink!" he urged me and I took a small sip.

It still tasted disgusting but if it did any good it would be worth it.

"So Malfoy then let's see how good a liar you are."

"Knock yourself out Longbottom," I challenged him. Let him see that I wasn't lying.

"Why are you here?"

Confused, I looked at him.

"Flo wanted me to."

"You know I don't like you, so why do you think it was a good idea to come here?"

"Well it was your stupid idea Longbottom, it wasn't my fault.

It wasn't a good idea but Flo asked me so I'm here."

He rolled his eyes.

"So you're serious about her?"

I nodded.

"Say it Malfoy. Tell me to my face if you love her or not! If the answer is no, then you will immediately disappear from her life."

"You're serious Longbottom? A bit very theatrical, even for a Gryffindor, don't you think?"

His face took on his house colours, which actually made him look less threatening.

"Shut up Malfoy and now answer the question!"

I took one deep breath.

Great, now Longbottom would also be the one who knew my innermost feelings for Flo. Him and Mrs Morgan.

"Not a minute goes by that I don't think about her.

She is the reason I live and my drive to be a better person. I am aware that I don't deserve her, even a blind man could see that, but I am grateful for every day that she is not aware of that.

I know that one day she will wake up and see what kind of person I am.

For her there will be an after, someone who deserves her and who is good for her, someone who is not me.

But for me there is no after, for me it's her or no one.

She is the only person in this world more important to me than myself, I would give my life for her because without her I wouldn't survive.

Call it love or call it obsession, I don't care but I beg you, give me the chance to make her happy while I can.

You don't have to put up with me forever, it's foreseeable that she will throw me to the wind, so please let me have my chance while I still have one with her."

Silence.

Longbottom didn't say a word but just stared at me.

This had all been his idea, now he had to live with the consequences too.

It remained agonisingly silent for a minute or so until I decided to leave.

There was no point in this and it had been stupid to come here anyway.

Flo should have a nice evening, I could manage.

I was about to push down the door handle when Longbottom's voice stopped me.

"So you never lied to me about her?"

"No, never."

"There's only been something going on since the ball?"

"Yes."

"How long has it been going on for you?"

"Christmas."

Clear questions, quick answers, that's how we should have done it from the beginning, then he would have avoided the nauseatingly schmaltzy answer.

"Christmas?"

"Long story, she should tell you."

He exhaled once, deeply, then looked straight at me. Until earlier he had always given me a nasty glare but now he just looked defeated.

I told you Longbottom, I'm not lying.

"Are you going to hurt her?"

I gulped. That was the problem.

"Yes, probably. But I'll do my best not to do it knowingly."

"You better hope so. She's far too good for you and if I hear the slightest complaint about you, I'll..."

"...You'll kill me. I get it but then you'll have to get in line behind your girlfriend, because she claimed that privilege before you did."

He just shrugged his shoulders as if he was perfectly fine with letting Abbot go first.

"Can I go now?", I asked, putting my hand back on the door handle.

"No, but you can bring the two girls back inside. We still have the end of the exams to celebrate, after all."

Now I was the one staring.

"Oh, by the way, the effect of the serum should last another half hour or so and Hannah's pretty nosy, so watch it carefully."

I just stopped and stared.

Longbottom on the other hand, pushed past me, opened the door and only a moment later I felt Flo's warm hand on my arm.

"Is everything okay?" she whispered and I nodded just to keep from speaking.

"Cheers to our finals!" Abbot exclaimed as we all sat together on the bed, each holding a glass of either firewiskey or pumpkin juice.

We toasted, which gave me half a heart attack because Longbottom's drink sloshed ominously in his glass.

We were sitting on a bed, where food had no place. Worse, this was the bed in which he was fucking Abbot.

I shuddered at the thought.

Just don't think about it Draco, just don't think about it.

Flo had put her hand on my knee and was stroking it, lost in thought, while the three were talking about the last year.

Salazar help me, is she still not aware of the effect her touch has on me?

Or is that her plan?

Does she want to get rid of me as soon as possible?

Because that's exactly what would happen if she didn't stop very soon. Because if it wasn't Abbot who killed me, it would certainly be Longbottom if I was sitting here with a boner right now.

My silent plea was answered and Flo took her hand off my leg.

The problem was that it wasn't just her hand that disappeared, it was everything.

She slid away from me and positioned herself in front of Abbot. I

I had missed something in the last few minutes.

Flo loosened her bun and her long curls fell down her back. I had only seen her with her hair down once before and then, as now, it left me speechless.

She looked gorgeous, the way the curls caressed her face. Her hair looked incredibly healthy and shone as if it had never seen split ends.

Immediately I felt the urge to run my hand through her hair and twist her curls around my fingers, but I suppressed it.

I would definitely do that someday, but right now only Abbot had the pleasure.

"And you always do this on girls' nights?" Longbottom asked, bringing me back to reality and I would now at least try to follow the conversation.

"Not always but often. It's quite relaxing.

What do you do on your boys' nights?" Abbot replied as she combed Flo's curls.

"There's a lot of alcohol and often some kind of dare or pranks," he explained sheepishly and took another sip from his glass.

I barely suppressed a snort.

That sounded super dull.

When Slytherins partied, they drank till they dropped, made out with anyone who didn't leave quickly enough and lost a lot of money at poker and when they weren't playing for money, it was strip poker.

I had always loved those evenings. I was good at poker and on my worst day I had sat there with my socks and shirt off but it had never got any further than that.

Those evenings held my first and wildest experiences of making out and groping, though anything further had always been in private.

But that's what they were, memories. Nothing more than more and more fading images with which I could identify less and less.

Maybe I missed the conversations a little and the poker too, but I didn't miss the person I was back then and I wouldn't bring him out again either.

"And with you Draco?", Abbot jerked me back into the here and now and before I could even think the Veritaserum had answered: "Strippoker and booze."

Longbottom snorted before I had even realised what I had said, while the girls just stared at me in amazement.

"Are you good at Poker Malfoy?" Flo asked with a sneer, knowing full well what the use of my surname triggered me.

"I guess you'll have to find out for yourself Scamander," I grinned back.

Abbott's face changed from normal to red, to white back to red again.

"Seriously?" she asked shyly but Flo just nodded.

"Well, I'd be in," Longbottom laughed and now it was just up to Abbot to give her answer.

What if she agreed?

Damn, I couldn't play strip poker with Longbottom, Abbot and Flo.

But that's exactly what we did.

Abbot had reluctantly agreed and then fetched the poker case from the common room.

I had had to indulge in two glasses of firewiskey before the game started and Abbot had also switched to alcohol, only Longbottom and Flo seemed completely unimpressed.

It was round four and so far Longbottom had lost two pieces of clothing and Abbott and I had lost one.

"How did you get so good at this?", Abbot wanted to know from Flo when she also won round five.

"Poker is one of those things you just have to know how to do, general education.

Besides, my uncle and I are pros at playing poker to wash up," she laughed.

I could vividly imagine her and Jacob sitting at the table and the looser having to wash the dirty dishes without magic.

It sounded like something I should definitely do, apart from the washing up.

The evening got late, the firewiskey bottle emptier and emptier and the clothes less and less.

But to my utter amazement, I actually enjoyed it.

We laughed, joked and in between it almost felt like I belonged.

Of course it was strange, more than strange even, but it was much more pleasant than I had expected.

When Longbottom was sitting on the bed in nothing but boxers, he pulled the rip cord and got out.

So much for Gryffindor courage.

Abbott's courage also disappeared when she sat in front of us in only her underwear.

Flo was still in the lead, only with bare feet and without her cardigan, and I was wearing only trousers and boxers.

There had been no mistaking the way Abbott had stared when I had taken my shirt off, which had only elicited a grin from me.

So let her stare.

I knew myself that there were clearly worse upper bodies to look at and in my personal opinion her boyfriend's was one of them.

"We should stop," I suggested and Flo looked at me dismissively.

"Scared Malfoy?"

"No, but Abbott is already staring and since I don't want her to have a heart attack when I take my pants off, so we'd better stop."

"I'm not staring!" she protested loudly, but it wasn't really convincing.

Maybe I should be a little uncomfortable here, but all the alcohol prevented that.

"Oh no? So Flo and I shall continue playing?", I asked, turning to Abbott and raising an eyebrow.

At that moment the door opened and Longbottom came in. He had been in the kitchen for a moment getting us some more alcohol, so he hadn't noticed his girlfriend staring.

"Don't you play any more?" he asked, and slowly you could hear the alcohol in his voice.

He could really hold his liquor for a Gryffindor.

"No, I just gave up," Flo quickly interjected, earning confused looks from all three sides.

I was about to ask indignantly why she was lying but she just shook her head slightly, telling me to shut up.

I would have liked to keep playing, I was enjoying embarrassing Abbott amazingly and I had hoped to win at least one more game to see a bit more of Flo's beautiful body.

"Couldn't you have thought of that before I went into the kitchen?

I almost got caught!

Then I could have saved myself the trouble," Longbottom complained as he dropped back onto the bed.

Flo put the game away and I reluctantly put my shirt back on.

Then we played two-truths-and-one-lie.

A game where the player whose turn it is tells three things about himself, two of which are true and one of which is a lie. The other players have to guess which of the facts is a lie and whoever is wrong has to drink.

The insight I took away from this game were that Neville was actually thrown out of a window by his uncle to find out if he is magical or not and that I was incredibly bad at debunking lies.

"I think I should put him to bed," I heard Flo say but was unsure who it was about.

Did she want to take Longbottom to bed?

And if so, which one? Because suddenly there were two sitting here.

Funny, two of them, just like the Weasley twins. I didn't know Longbottom had a twin as well.

I felt Flo's warm hand on my arm pulling me to my feet.

I began to stumble. Why was this ground so shaky?

"Where are we going?", I asked when we reached the corridors.

"I'm taking you to bed," Flo explained, still leaning on me.

Why was she putting me to bed? I wasn't tired at all.

"I don't need to go to bed, I'm not tired," I spoke my thoughts which only earned me a snort from Flo.

"You're drunk and that's why I'm taking you to bed now."

"Are you taking me to your bed?", I giggled.

"No, I'm taking you to your bed."

"Told you, to your bed."

Flo beside me sighed. But I don't know why, I was right after all.

I didn't understand what had been wrong with that.

We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because it took ages to get down to the dungeons.

We were finally standing in front of the Slytherin rooms and Flo told the password.

"You know the password," I said in amazement, and maybe now I could hear the alcohol in my voice.

"You're catching on early," she grumbled and pushed me up to my room.

Once there, I dropped straight onto the bed, because suddenly I had the feeling that the room was spinning around me and then everything went black.